Overview

A Painted Field - Robin Robertson's first collection - was published in 1997 to unanimous acclaim. In language both sensuous and coolly forthright, the poems in Slow Air describe the arc of loss, the search for grace, and the radiances and shadows of the natural world - the work pitching its embattled romanticism, its lyric weight, against fear, grief and erasure. Praise for A Painted Field 'A superb debut . . . darkly chiselled poems haunted by mortality and the fragility of life's pleasures' Kazuo Ishiguro, Sunday Times Books of the Year 'The best new poet in Britain is Robin Robertson' Andrew O'Hagan, Independent on Sunday Books of the Year 'A poetic voice of quiet yet charged maturity: lyrical and complex, transparent and gravid, it can treat both the public theme and the intensely personal with the same serenely wrought fire' William Boyd, Scotsman Books of the Year 'Robin Robertson is a master of the poetic line; this is wonderful work, at once muscular and delicate, ringing with a plangent, bitter music. A marvellous debut' John Banville

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Reviews

Robin Robertson's first collection of poetry, A Painted Field, published in 1997, was extremely well received, winning the Forward prize for Best First Collection and the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award, and this second collection has been eagerly awaited. Though highly regarded - Andrew O'Hagan called him 'the best new poet in Britain' - Robertson is not as generally well known as the small group of poets who regularly turn up in the media. This is to some extent explained by the challenging nature of his poems and their lack of gimmicks. His work is both sparse and lyrical; characterized by short lines, often grouped in pairs, it depends on precise choice of words for the most telling effect. Robertson's economy of expression makes the reader work to create the meaning whch fills in the white spaces on the pages, often the most satisfying form of poetry. Much of the subject matter begins with depictions of the natural world, both visual and aural, in poems such as 'Tryst', which reflects the hypersensitivity to sights and sounds of someone waiting, but he also touches on the interior and domestic, for example in 'Break', in which a woman cuts herself while washing up. Three prose passages, 'Anxiety # 2, 3 and 5', represent a new departure, each one depicting a disturbing scene, like a sequence from a nightmare. Some of the poems, such as the group 'From the Jardin des Plantes', are based on the work of Rilke, currently very popular in poetry circles, while 'The Wood of the Suicides' is a version of Dante. Much of Roberston's imagery is derived from nature but there are also references to classical mythology, for example in 'Dream of the Huntress'. These are graceful, luminous poems dealing with basic emotions in a precise, sensitive way. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Robin Robertson is from the north-east coast of Scotland. A Painted Field won a number of prizes, including the 1997 Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Saltire Scottish First Book of the Year Award. His second collection, Slow Air, was published in 2002, and he recently received the 2004 E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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